Gupta Ashish, Srivastava Chandan Kumar, Bhushan Braj, Behera Laxmidhar
Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India.
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2025 Jun 18;19:1472689. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2025.1472689. eCollection 2025.
The human brain naturally responds to music, with happy music enhancing attention and sad music aiding emotion regulation. However, the specific electroencephalogram (EEG) microstates linked to these cognitive and emotional effects remain unclear. This study investigated the microstates associated with happiness and sadness, focusing on the alpha band, using classical music as stimuli. Results revealed a significant increase in class D microstate, associated with attention, during happy music listening. An inverse relationship between class C (linked to mind-wandering) and class D microstates was observed. Analysis of global explained variance (GEV) and global field potential (GFP) indicated that happy music upregulated class D and downregulated class C microstates compared to baseline. In contrast, sad music elicited an increased presence of class B, class C, and class D microstates, with GEV and GFP analyses showing upregulation of class C and class D compared to the resting state. These findings suggest distinct cognitive effects: (1) an increase in class D and reduction in class C microstates explain enhanced attention during happy music listening, and (2) the concurrent upregulation of class C and class D microstates underpins enhanced emotion regulation and self-regulatory goals observed upon sad music listening. Notably, compared to baseline, the mean microstate duration was significantly longer for both happy ( = 0.018) and sad ( = 0.0003) music, indicating that music listening enhances the temporal stability of active microstates. These findings advance the understanding of the neural mechanisms underpinning music's cognitive and emotional effects, providing a framework to explore music-induced changes in brain dynamics and their implications for emotion regulation and attentional modulation.
人类大脑会自然地对音乐做出反应，欢快的音乐能提高注意力，悲伤的音乐有助于情绪调节。然而，与这些认知和情绪效应相关的具体脑电图（EEG）微状态仍不明确。本研究以古典音乐为刺激物，调查了与快乐和悲伤相关的微状态，重点关注阿尔法波段。结果显示，在聆听欢快音乐时，与注意力相关的D类微状态显著增加。观察到C类微状态（与走神有关）和D类微状态之间呈负相关。对全局解释方差（GEV）和全局场电位（GFP）的分析表明，与基线相比，欢快音乐上调了D类微状态，下调了C类微状态。相比之下，悲伤的音乐引发了B类、C类和D类微状态的增加，GEV和GFP分析显示，与静息状态相比，C类和D类微状态上调。这些发现表明了不同的认知效应：（1）D类微状态增加和C类微状态减少解释了聆听欢快音乐时注意力的增强，（2）C类和D类微状态同时上调支撑了聆听悲伤音乐时观察到的情绪调节和自我调节目标的增强。值得注意的是，与基线相比，欢快音乐（p = 0.018）和悲伤音乐（p = 0.0003）的平均微状态持续时间都显著更长，这表明聆听音乐增强了活跃微状态的时间稳定性。这些发现推进了对音乐认知和情绪效应背后神经机制的理解，为探索音乐引起的大脑动力学变化及其对情绪调节和注意力调制的影响提供了一个框架。
